Map applications are a popular type of application with a variety of uses. For example, a user may use a map application to determine directions, or may use a map application to determine restaurants, banks, drugstores, and other entities near a current location. Map applications are commonly integrated into smartphones, tablets, and vehicle navigation systems, and may be accessed by any computing device though the Internet.
Many applications periodically present content items such as images, videos, and sound recording to users of the applications. These content items may include advertisements, for example. These content items are often presented in exchange for free, or reduced cost use of the application, or because the user has shown an interest in a product or service that is associated with the application. For example, an application such as a music streaming application may periodically play an audio content item that is an advertisement for a local restaurant, or an application that is associated with a department store may periodically present the user with content items that include coupons or descriptions of new products available at the store.
Modern devices such as smartphones execute multiple applications simultaneously, with each application presenting content items to the user. However, current applications are not able to share information about content items, or provide content items for other applications to present. This problem is particularly evident with map applications that may have location and search information that may be useful for other applications to use in selecting a content item to present. Continuing the examples above, for the music streaming application, the application could play the content item for the restaurant when the location information associated with the map application indicates that the user is at a location that is near the restaurant. Similarly, the department store application could provide a content item to the map application that is a coupon for the department store when the user searches for a store in the map application. The map application could present the coupon to the user along with the search results.